While winter wheat planted acres are down slightly in the U.S., the area seeded to Soft Red Winter Wheat is up from last year.

The USDA released its estimates for winter wheat planting on Friday (Jan. 12).

In total, the seeded area for 2018 is expected to be 32.6 million acres, down less than 1 per cent from 2017 and down 10 per cent from 2016.

The USDA says this represents the second lowest U.S. acreage on record. Seedings, which began in early September, remained behind the 5-year average seeding pace through early November when seeding was mostly complete.

Soft Red Winter (SRW) wheat seeded area totals 5.98 million acres, up 4 per cent from last year.

The USDA expects acreage increases in most of the SRW growing States, while decreases are expected in the Delta Region, most Northeastern States, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Record low acreage was seeded in Louisiana, New Jersey, and West Virginia.

Hard Red Winter (HRW) wheat seeded area is expected to total 23.1 million acres, down 2 per cent from 2017. Planted acreage is down from last year across most of the growing region.

Also of note, White Winter wheat seeded area totals 3.56 million acres, up 1 per cent from 2017.